Weekly Genealogy Picks

Weekly Genealogy Picks -- January 24 to January 30
from genealogy blogs, newspaper articles and elsewhere

James Tanner at Genealogy's Star writes about The Future of FamilySearch

In Lithuania: View your shtetl from the air and Lithuania: Joining a SIG is a good idea! Schelly Talalay Dardashti at Tracing the Tribe discusses two resources for researching Lithuanian roots.

At The Genealogue Chris Dunham corrects the New York Times on the birthplace of J.D Salinger's mother. (Iowa, not Scotland.)

Apple at Apple's Tree discovers a revolutionary war pension application of a possible relative at Footnote.com, and upon looking at it, realizes it doesn't match a transcription she had read in a 1918 genealogy. Finding the original pays off.

At Nordic Blue Chery Kinnick continues and concludes The Best Laid Genealogical Plans - the story of her search for her birth father.

NBC has released a preview of the upcoming series, Who Do You Think You Are

MA newly elected Senator, Scott Brown, is related to President Obama. (10th cousins. I'm 9th cousins with John Kerry, and 7th cousins with William Holden and Patrick Swayze, so I'm not too impressed.)

George Stephanopoulos may be (very) distantly related to Hillary Clinton - though the potential linkage appears to be 'deduced' from a genetic trait discovered in a DNA test Stephanopoulos took, but which Clinton hasn't taken. 'Genealogists believe Clinton shares' the trait, but the news story doesn't indicate why they believe this. It sounds very fuzzy to me.

Egypt has set a date to announce the DNA results for King Tut

The related discussion of writing memoirs has been brought up in the past by some genea-bloggers. 91 year-old science fiction author, Frederik Pohl, has been writing and posting updates to his memoir at The Way the Future Blogs. Recently, he discussed how he met Isaac Asimov. (The post includes a photograph of a cleanshaven Asimov from the 1930s.)

Yesterday, January 30, was the Jewish holiday of Tu B'shevat. Sometimes referred to as New Year of the Trees, or Jewish Arbor Day.

For other weekly lists visit:

• Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs at Genea-Musings
• Apple's Weekly Rewind at Apple's Tree
• Diane Haddad's Genealogy News Corral at Genealogy Insider